It's a great pleasure to welcome Japanese electronic music stronghold Kaoru Inoue (@kaoru324), also known as Chari Chari and founder of the Seeds And Ground label, to the mix series. Interview (excerpt) down below.

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MFM: Welcome on board of the series Kaoru. You're from Japan and are living in Tokyo. Do you find Tokyo, and Japan as whole, a positive place to be at as an artist?

KI: Tokyo is a fascinating city, full of crazy stimuli and exciting noise, but I don’t need it anymore as the years go by, especially after the pandemic. So now I feel like an outsider loving Tokyo and living a quiet life in its suburbs. I think it’s a positive place for artists in the sense that it’s still rich in nature and food, and the population is decreasing, despite having experienced the high economic growth and the high information society, but what we learned again after the pandemic is that government protection policies are fragile. 

MFM: Your musical output as a producer is quite large and rather versatile, from acoustic guitar sessions to more new age like soundscapes to broken beat and deep house. Where does this versatility come from? 

KI: I think it's because I've been deeply committed to music since my teens. From YMO to post-punk, ethnic, rare groove to deep house, I was already looking for and listening to music like a researcher from a young age. So I started DJing naturally as a way to mix and share my records, and my outputs could be a fusion of them. However, so to speak, I’ve been most influenced by the contextuality of House music, and when looking at everything from a bird’s eye view, I can say that my main interest is, in a word, in “Minimalism”.

MFM: Your music -regardless which moniker you use- sounds extremely organic, very earthly but also mystical and sacred. As if it was recorded far deep in nature amongst some indigenous tribe's ritual. Where does this signature sound come from, what are its origins?

KI: My early tunes were strongly influenced by the atmosphere of Bali & Java in Indonesia, where I used to visit in my twenties, and I think it still remains somewhere in me. I also have a cultural anthropological interest in folk or tribal music from all over the world, and I even am influenced by ecological ideas. (In recent years, I’ve been more into traditional & contemporary music from my own country than ever before.) I think that’s why it is.

MFM: Hence your own label's name Seeds And Ground too probably? 

KI: Indeed, and it’s a metaphor for sex and creation.

MFM: How about the instruments? There's guitar, lots and lots of percussion, marimba, field recordings, plenty chords too... Are you a trained musician and do you record all these parts yourself (with the real instruments)? 

KI: I had learnt to play piano as a child and taught myself to play guitar from the age of 13. However, after encountering DJ culture in my early twenties, I quit a band and didn’t play an instrument for a while. So I know a little more about harmony, chords and so on than the average DJ. I’ve also started to play the guitar again a little bit in a few projects since I started producing electronic music, but only in a very specific way. I’ve also recorded with many different musicians so far.

MFM: So, what can you tell about the mix you've made? Did you record it with a certain vibe or theme or purpose in mind?

KI: It’s a rethinking of “New Age”ish or “Obscure”ish music, past and present. Some Japanese music from the 80s and 90s has also been included with respect to Eiji & Norio who compiled “Heisei No Oto”. And two of my recent tracks as Chari Chari are also included.

MFM: By the way, by the look of your shirt you're a Jodorowsky fan? :)

KI: I look up to Jodorowsky as my mentor, especially after reading his autobiography. I got this shirt as a return from the Endless Poetry crowdfunding campaign.

MFM Mix 034: Kaoru Inoue

Image Man + DJ Snafu live n’ direct 4 the next 2

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Image Man +  DJ Snafu @ The Lot Radio 11-01-2021

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Image Man @ The Lot Radio 08 - 08 - 2022

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